Chinese Sticky Rice (糯米飯, No6 Mai5 Faan6)

 

This recipe was updated on 02 Jan 2015. Some instructions and ingredient quantities were changed, and metric measurements added.

Happy New Year’s to everyone. For the first recipe of the year, here’s a simplified version of Chinese sticky rice. While there’s still a lot of preparation to make this dish, the recipe is much easier to make due to the use of a rice cooker than the classic version my Mom would make. All Chinese Mom’s have a similar recipe for this dish, the primary ingredients being sweet (glutinous) rice, Cantonese pork sausage, dried shrimp, and Shiitake mushrooms. The variation in recipes come from the way the ingredients are prepared, any additional goodies that get added, and the way everything gets cooked together to make the final dish.

This is one of the dishes my Mom would always make for holidays and for her (favorite) Chicken Stuffed with Sticky Rice (糯米鷄, No⁶ Mai⁵ Gai¹). She would carefully chop and brown all the savory ingredients, prepare the sticky rice, combine the ingredients, and then cook the whole thing in the largest pot she had. Needless to say, the preparation time and work for this dish was large, but the results were always worth it. The best part being that after cooking the rice, there would be a crust of sticky rice on the bottom of the pot, which was another tasty treat after being boiled with more water.

 

So being the curious cook that I am, I asked my Mom for the recipe many years ago, and tried to emulate her recipe with varying degrees of success for the past number of holidays when I was doing the cooking (mainly the dish turned out just OK). The main change to her recipe was that I used a rice cooker instead of a pot to make the sticky rice – which means no rice crust. So over the years, I varied the ingredients (adding dried scallops, dried oysters, and other ingredients), soaked (like she did) or didn’t soak the rice in the mushroom hydration liquid before cooking (the rice turned out too soft if soaked beforehand or didn’t have the right taste if not soaked), varied the ratio of glutinous to non-glutinous rice (using both white and brown rice), and the amount and type of liquid (stock, water, rehydration liquid) to cook the sticky rice.

 

The change I made to make this version of the recipe for my family’s Christmas 2012 dinner was soaking the rice for one hour before cooking in the rice cooker. I found the method in Carolyn Jung’s recipe for sticky rice at FoodGal.com. While there still is a considerable amount of preparation time required to make this dish, this version is far simpler and uses fewer ingredients than my previous attempts. My Mom gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to this version and couldn’t wait to take leftovers home with her! So below is the recipe for my rice cooker version of my Mom’s sticky rice.

Enjoy!

This recipe is for a rice cooker that’s 5 cups (1.2 l.) or greater in capacity. Preparation of the dried ingredients needs to start 2 days before cooking and there’s also a one hour soak time before the start of cooking, so plan ahead. See the notes at the end for more advice. I also usually double the amounts and use two rice cookers when making this dish for holiday dinners, since you can never have too much sticky rice!

Ingredients

1½ cup	375 ml.	Sweet (glutinous) rice (糯米, no6 mai5)
½ cup	125 ml.	Brown jasmine rice (糙香米, cou3 hoeng1 mai5) or jasmine rice (香米, hoeng1 mai5)
5	5	Dried Shiitake mushrooms (冬菇, dung1 gu1), rehydrated and diced into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces
3	3	Cantonese pork sausages (臘腸, laap6 coeng4), diced into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces
1½ oz.	45 g.	Dried shrimp (蝦米, haa1 mai5), rehydrated – ½ package
1¾ oz.	50 g.	Dried scallops (瑤柱, jiu4 cyu5), rehydrated (optional) – ½ package
2 Tbs.	30 ml.	Shaoxing rice wine (紹興酒, siu6 hing1 zau2) or dry sherry
3 stalks	3 stalks	Green onions (葱, cung1), cut into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces
½ bunch	½ bunch	Cilantro (芫茜, jyun4 sai1), cut into ½-inch (15 mm.) pieces
		Oil for cooking

 

Equipment

14 in.	35.5 cm.	Wok or pan
5 cup	1.2 L.	Rice cooker or larger

 

Preparation Instructions (2 Days Before)

1. Add boiling water and soak the Shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, and dried scallops in separate bowls.

Preparation Instructions (1 Day Before)

1. Remove the Shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, and dried scallops from the rehydration liquid. Save the rehydration liquid for later use.
2. Dice the Shiitake mushrooms and the Cantonese pork sausage into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces.
3. Heat a wok or pan over high heat before adding oil and then the Cantonese pork sausage. Brown the sausage and then remove to a bowl.
4. Reheat the wok over high heat before adding more oil and then the rehydrated dried shrimp. Brown the shrimp, and then remove to the bowl with the Cantonese pork sausage.
5. Reheat the wok over high heat before adding more oil and then the rehydrated dried scallops. Brown the scallops, and then remove to the bowl with the Cantonese pork sausage.
6. Reheat the wok over high heat before adding more oil and then the rehydrated Shiitake mushrooms. Brown the mushrooms and then add the Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry to deglaze the wok. Put the contents of the wok into the bowl with the Cantonese pork sausage, cover when cool, and then put the bowl into the refrigerator.

Cooking Instructions

1. Remove the bowl with the Cantonese pork sausage, dried shrimp, and dried scallops from the refrigerator at least one hour before cooking.
2. Cut the green onions into ¼-inch (7.5 mm.) pieces. Cut the cilantro into ½-inch (15 mm) pieces. Set aside the green onion and cilantro.
3. Combine and wash the sweet (glutinous) rice and the brown- or jasmine rice, and place into the rice cooker. Add the Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry, and the dried shrimp and scallop rehydration liquid to the rice cooker. Add enough liquid as you normally would if you were using water to cook the rice to the rice cooker. Use the Shiitake mushroom rehydration liquid if more liquid is required. Allow the rice to soak in the rehydration liquid for one hour before cooking (this is important).
4. After soaking the rice for one hour, add the sausage-shrimp-scallop-mushroom mixture on top of the rice in the rice cooker. If your rice cooker has a multiple settings for the type of rice (usually white, brown, and sweet), turn on the rice cooker using the white or brown setting. The extended cooking time for the sweet rice setting makes the rice too soft (at least on my rice cooker).
5. At the end of the cooking cycle, add the green onions and cilantro to the rice cooker. Mix the entire contents of the rice cooker together and then allow sticky rice to sit in the rice cooker (on the warm setting) for another 5-10 minutes before serving. 

Notes

1. You’ll notice that there’s no extra seasoning (soy sauce, oyster sauce …) used in this recipe. The seasoning comes from the rehydration liquid from the dried shrimp and dried scallops. The rehydration liquid serves as a water substitute to cook the rice.
2. Dried scallops are a luxurious optional addition to the recipe. The basic ingredients for the dish are the sweet (glutinous) rice, Cantonese pork sausage, dried shrimp, and Shiitake mushrooms, so feel free to omit this ingredient if you don’t have dried scallops. This ingredient was not in my Mom’s original recipe. Feel free to add other ingredients to customize your version of this recipe.
3. Browning the Shiitake mushrooms, dried shrimp, and dried scallops before cooking in the rice cooker is important since it adds more flavor to the completed dish. You can of course not do this before adding these ingredients to the rice cooker to save time. The completed dish will still be tasty, but will taste different than the browned version.
4. A mixture of sweet (glutinous) rice and brown- or jasmine rice is used so that the completed dish is not too sticky. The greater the ratio of sweet to regular rice, the more sticky the rice will be (which means that using all sweet rice makes the dish too sticky). The 3:1 ratio of sweet to regular rice produces the correct consistency for the dish.
5. Soaking the rice in the rehydration liquid for one hour before cooking is an important step. The taste of the dish is different if the rice is not soaked for that hour. Soaking the rice longer does not improve the taste, but can lead to the completed dish being mushy.
6. Some recipes call for cooking the green onion and cilantro with the rice rather than adding it in at the end. I have found that the taste is much fresher if you add the green onions and cilantro at the end of the cooking cycle, but feel free to add them in at the start of cooking.